Over summer I’ve got two main projects on the go; collection management for the Teaching Practice collection (for trainee teachers), and managing a project working on development of induction activities for the VLE. I also usually have two enquiry desk duties per week, each of which is half a day (this week mine are Wednesday afternoon and Friday afternoon).

Work activities on my desk this week

Today I spent most of the day on the induction project, although I did spend a little bit of time weeding.

Morning activities today included:

• Sorting and responding to emails – nowhere near as many each morning since I recently reorganised my folders and accounts, using my librarian skills to good effect!
• Reviewing induction material sent to me by one of the project team – gave feedback for a few minor amendments
• Moving the HTML content from one VLE topic to another, uploading images to new topic, and changing the structure slightly (splitting a long section up into component parts)
• Adding the complete structure to the new topic (with blank marker pages) to get a better idea of the overall induction package
• Weeding the Teaching Practice collection – finished Music and did the Sport/PE section so just Geography and History to go now

Afternoon activities included:

• Reviewing more induction project material to ensure we’re sticking to the project brief and covering the areas we need without going overboard – a real threat to this project has been creeping into more advanced material, so it’s important we establish and stick to what we believe is necessary information for induction level
• Helping a colleague rearrange furniture – he’s swapped desks and needed to rearrange all his PC equipment (he’s a lucky so and so who has two monitors!)
• Adding some of the quiz questions to the VLE including feedback – remembered I could include images as answer options which makes the screenshot questions easier to understand
• More photographs, screenshots and image editing
• Starting to think about what, if any, files (physical or electronic) I need to handover before leaving – I’ve been at this workplace for almost 5 years, but most of what I have produced is publicly (or internally) available. Hopefully my meeting with my manager next week will help me think about all the things I’ve likely forgotten about!

Probably reads as a pretty boring day, but I’m excited about the induction activities project and want to make it a really useful tool for all our new students, taking into account different starting knowledge points and different learning styles. It’s all starting to come together nicely now so fingers crossed it will be complete before I leave!

If you’re interested in following other librarians, go to the wiki and use the links to people’s blogs, or use the #libday5 search in Twitter. Looking forward to #libday6 when I should be in my new job!

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Over summer I’ve got two main projects on the go; collection management for the Teaching Practice collection (for trainee teachers), and managing a project working on development of induction activities for the VLE. I also usually have two enquiry desk duties per week, each of which is half a day (this week mine are Wednesday afternoon and Friday afternoon).

Current to do list (I also use RTM for smaller subtasks)

I took some photos of my workplace today (including the one above of my overall to do list), you can see them all in this set on Flickr. Others have also been adding photos for the project, I find it really interesting to look at where people work.

Morning activities today included:

• Sorting and responding to emails
• Finding examples of different types of material for the induction activities (book, CD, DVD, and chapter from edited book from well known or general study skills material) – always amazes me how long it can take to find a good example!
• Taking photos and screenshots of example materials and example searches on OPAC (library catalogue)
• Adding the images and brief explanatory text to the VLE
• Putting together some multiple choice questions for the induction activities
• Covering the Lending Services Helpdesk for 90mins whilst other staff were at a meeting (this involved selling some withdrawn books and binding materials, issuing reservations, renewing a laptop loan, helping students find books, and helping a student with a corrupt USB drive – oh and cutting my hand whilst guillotining some scrap paper!)

Afternoon activities included:

• Adding more induction material to the VLE (think this will be repeated every morning and afternoon for the foreseeable future!)
• Glancing through the CILIP Defining our Professional Future report, and printing a copy to read soon
• Flicking through the online version of Library & Information Update from CILIP
• Organising my calendar for the next few weeks before I finish this job role (including arranging some meetings with my manager)
• Trying to sort out a crashing issue with Photoshop (using advice from Twitter) before editing images ready for web use – it seemed a little better later on, but still crashed when I tried to open multiple files so more investigation needed tomorrow!

If you’re interested in following other librarians, go to the wiki and use the links to people’s blogs, or use the #libday5 search in Twitter.

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Over summer I’ve got two main projects on the go; collection management for the Teaching Practice collection (for trainee teachers), and managing a project working on development of induction activities for the VLE. I also usually have two enquiry desk duties per week, each of which is half a day (this week mine are Wednesday afternoon and Friday afternoon).

Morning activities today included:

• Sorting through emails and responding to a couple of email enquiries (local college librarian re-arranging a visit to discuss inductions and education student researching pedagogy and andragogy for her dissertation)
• Changing loan status of some books which are no longer in such high demand
• Selecting books for withdrawal in the music education section of Teaching Practice (found some gems which I’ll photograph to share!)
• Organising classmarks of books to be changed where they would be more findable from another area (Teaching Practice is usually browsed, not found by searching OPAC, so logical placement in terms of the area of the curriculum it supports is vital)
• Returning books I’ve been too lazy to return and kept renewing even though I have finished with them (librarians are such rebels!)
• Enjoying a lovely slice of gluten free chocolate cake made specially by a colleague (this was definitely a highlight!)

Afternoon activities included:

• Answering a couple of phone and in-person enquiries – mainly just directional enquiries though, no meaty research enquiries this afternoon
• Briefly covering the Lending Services Helpdesk (and helping a lost student find a book)
• Looking at the latest issue of SCONUL Focus – read part of a particularly interesting article about improving support and liaison links with academic staff and researchers
• Discussions with a colleague about changes to the curriculum and how our soon to be developed induction activities can be embedded into the new modules
• Discussions with a different colleague about the progress on the induction activities (this turned into an epic conversation but I think we both had a clearer idea by the end!)
• Drafting some ideas and activities for my areas of responsibility in the induction activities (mainly activities using multiple choice questions with clear feedback at each stage)
• Testing capabilities of the VLE – thankfully inserting images into multiple choice questions is relatively straight forward!

I forgot to take photos today so I’ll be sure to take some tomorrow and add them to the blog posts.

If you’re interested in following other librarians, go to the wiki and use the links to people’s blogs, or use the #libday5 search in Twitter.

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My workshop was examining ‘The Wild West’ scenario; an era of instability and regional divides, largely market driven but relatively open. We began the day by trying to visualise this scenario and what it could be like if this was the case in 2050. We thought about how this might affect currency, language, global resources, communication, and education. As you can see from the overview, in this scenario UK Higher Education consists of 20 academic and research intensive universities, 2-3 major vocational institutions in regional clusters (merging FE with HE), and around 25 new entrants from the private sector, mainly operating for profit. Funding of learning comes from employers and students (no state funding), with research funded by industry, state and regional partners.

The first activity looked at what an academic library might be like in the scenario. Possible models included a geographic shared service (similar to Worcester’s academic, public and history centre currently being built), all HE being supported by one national library service, or libraries working as trading bodies becoming specialists in certain areas which other libraries may choose to buy in. Key themes which came from these discussions included the concept of regional hubs to support teaching and research (maybe even a Starbucks University!), the possibility of research intensive universities publishing and selling their research to increase income, and collaborative opportunities for educational institutions and businesses for both learning and research.

The second activity required us to think about certain people within the scenario and what their relationship with the academic library would be. We looked at learners (researchers, undergraduates, adult learners), library workers (junior librarians, specialist librarians, library managers), and university staff (lecturers, academic authors, university managers). This was an interesting exercise, my group looked at adult learners (for whom we felt a lot of their current needs would still exist in this scenario), library managers (for whom we felt would need more business skills such as negotiation, networking and marketing), and academic authors (for whom we felt would need support with the publication process and measuring the impact of their work).

The final activity was to produce a timeline from 2010 to 2050 with key milestones, assuming that we would reach the Wild West scenario in 2050. We had to come up with some headlines (we were encouraged to make them radical) and place them on the timescale where we thought they might happen. Suggestions included Google competing with Amazon for online sales of physical books, shortly followed by the last ever physical textbook being printed. Each of the groups predicted news of library buildings closing (though not the service), and key publishers going bust. Most of the headlines were things we predicted in the next 20 years or so, it was more difficult to predict what might happen in 2030-2050.

It was a really interesting workshop, and I enjoyed the different approach of scenario building. It was very difficult to picture things in 40 years though, especially when you think how much library services and society in general has changed in the last 40 years! Keep an eye on the project website for more information or details of the different scenarios.

There was also a lot of crossover between the discussions at this event and those of CILIPs Defining our Professional Future project, which I’m looking forward to seeing the report from.

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Overview of the session

As the title of the workshop suggests, there were two main strands; the library brand itself, and its relationship with the student experience. We spent the first part of the workshop with activities and discussions about the library brand, including sharing some of the useful theoretical aspects to building and maintaining a strong brand. Emma and I were keen to emphasise the brand as the concept – the story of the organisation/library, rather than just the visual elements that people immediately think of. This seems to be a big hurdle though, and even myself at times have been known to initially think about logos and slogans when I hear the term “brand”. It’s about so much more than that though, and I think in many libraries (and other organisations), consideration of the brand (and marketing in general) comes low down the list of priorities and is thought of purely as the visual promotional tools such as logos, slogans, leaflets, posters, powerpoint presentations etc. In reality, everything the library does – every single interaction with a user or potential user will have an impact on the library brand. We don’t own the brand; it exists in the mind of the user, and the decisions we make about all aspects of the organisation will have an impact on brand perception, whether it’s in a positive or negative way. I really liked this quote from Howard Schulz, CEO of Starbucks in 1998:

Authentic brands…emanate from everything the company does, from store design and site selection to training, production, packaging and merchandise buying. In companies with strong brands, every senior manager has to evaluate each decision by asking, “Will it strengthen or dilute the brand?

We also touched upon creating the brand strategy using layers – visual value, and emotional – as mentioned in Mathews (2009), and used an academic library example (information literacy programme) to illustrate this, before discussing some of the elements of a strong brand:

• Clear, meaningful, unique message
• Consistent message
• Commitment from all staff
• Ongoing effort to deliver
• Visual elements to complement the brand

After we’d covered the basics of what the library brand means to us, we had a short quiz about library brands where people had to identify the brand based on some of the visual elements we identified (logo, strapline, library layout, colours etc.).

Then we moved on to discuss the student experience and how the library brand can impact on the student experience. This is something Emma and I had struggled with a little bit whilst we were putting together the workshop (well, I did!). We spent hours trying to come up with a model which illustrated the complex relationship between the library brand and the student experience, which was the core focus of our presentation. In the end we realised that none of the models we had conceptualised fully explained the relationship between each of the influencing factors. We decided on the key factors which we felt were included in this relationship – student needs, schools and services, and brand perception – and recognised that the relationship between these and even within them was too complex to demonstrate in a simple form. We settled on a funnel model, showing that each of these factors contribute (in possibly varying amounts) to the overall student experience. Emma found loads of great research about the student experience and how the library and its brand impacts on this, and presented a summary of each of the aspects we chose for the model and how they relate to the student experience.

You can see the slides from the presentation below:

The collaboration process

Emma and I had discussed working together following the New Professionals Conference 2009, where it was clear we had similar professional interests. We’d wanted to collaborate on marketing, something which we are both passionate about, and put together a proposal for CoFHE/UC&R Conference when we saw the call for papers – we were amazed when we found out we’d been chosen to present at the conference, and then the hard work began. We’ve been planning it for a few months now and despite the geographical distance (West Midlands and Brighton!) we’ve managed to meet a few times to discuss the workshop, and the rest has been done online. Meeting in person definitely helped us formulate the structure of the session and get our heads around the different research we’d found and concepts we wanted to bring to the workshop. I’ve really enjoyed working with Emma, and although we both had doubtful moments throughout the process of putting the workshop together, I think it was (mostly) a success. We’ve definitely learnt a lot from the experience – in terms of planning the content and also the actual workshop itself.

Lessons learnt from the workshop

We weren’t really sure what to expect from the workshop but having experienced Emma’s presentations before I was keen to ensure we included activities to break up the session (she’s great at coming up with these!). The session was fully booked quite quickly, which we were really pleased with, but meant that the room was fairly cramped and stuffy. We made sure to let as much air into the room before the session (it was after the lunch break), but had to shut the blinds during the session as people couldn’t see us by the window – not a bad thing I thought but the attendees seemed keen to see us! I would have liked more opportunity for engagement from the participants but think the size of the group and the layout of the room may have been better suited for group work (we had 5 mins group work at the beginning but not really much time). I think in future maybe it would be preferable to have alternative ways of achieving the same (e.g. quizzes on PowerPoint or on paper like a pub quiz), and adapting the style depending on the room and the group – definitely something I’ll consider in future. Despite our nerves, our style was quite informal and I think this suited the style of the conference workshops in this case. It was great to have the support of a friend and colleague to present with, and think it also helped with the organisation, particularly with a larger group.

What next?

There’s always more to be done and work to be improved on. I definitely hope to continue presenting at conferences, and would like to continue collaborative work with colleagues from the profession (and potentially outside the profession too). Two minds are better than one, and I think we both learnt a lot from the experience in terms of content about the topic and also in conference workshop planning and presenting. I’d certainly like to work with Emma again, and we have discussed continuing the research and possible publishing a paper in future.

Please let us know what you think, especially if you have any further thoughts about the relationship between the library brand and the student experience or views on the model. You may also be interested to read an attendee’s view on the workshop.

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LILAC 2010 conference dinner venue (thanks to @KathR on Twitter)

After LILAC, I said I’d like to write a blog post with some tips for attending conferences; here are my tips from my (limited!) experience at conferences.

1. Use social media (conference website/blog/Twitter) before the event to begin to find out who else is attending. I managed to find out some of the people I already “knew” through Twitter were attending and also found others on Twitter who were attending. You could even arrange a tweetup to break the ice and put a real life face to all those Twitter avatars (I tried to do this for LILAC but my flight was cancelled and I didn’t get to Limerick until late evening!).
2. Read the abstracts for any parallel sessions you need to choose - fortunately, I enjoyed all the sessions I attended but there were times when the session hadn’t been what I had been expecting from the title. In future I’d definitely try to read the abstracts when deciding what to choose.
3. Book parallel sessions early - my choice was a little limited at times due to them already being fully booked before I booked my sessions. In future I’d definitely try to prioritise reading the abstracts as soon as they are available so that I can book sessions early.
4. Allow plenty of time for travel - just in case something goes wrong. My flight was cancelled but I only missed exploration time, if I had booked for the next day as I’d initially considered, I could have missed a lot of the conference.
5. Schedule in some time to see the surrounding area if you can - I never seem to get this right. Last year I had a conference just outside Edinburgh and managed to visit my friend Jennie, but I only had a couple of hours to see her and the city and would have liked more time. This time I booked my travel as early as I could the day before the conference but due to the flight cancellation still didn’t get to see any of Ireland!
6. Travel light each day - especially if you’re not staying at the hotel venue. I found that there were times I was carrying unnecessary stuff round with me all day, especially on the first day when I was given a conference bag too.
7. Wear comfortable clothing and footwear - obvious one this but it is so true, you don’t want to be feeling uncomfortable during what is likely to be a long day. I tend to wear smart casual workwear (trousers or jeans), but there’s always a range in terms of what people wear. The most important point is to be comfortable (although I wouldn’t recommend turning up in your pyjamas!).
8. Attend as much as you can, but give yourself rest time too – conferences are full on and can be very tiring so make sure you have some time to yourself to rest and reflect. I realised I didn’t have long to get ready for the conference dinner at LILAC, so decided to miss the last couple of sessions and instead spend time in the exhibition area and in my hotel room getting ready!
9. Don’t expect too much of yourself straight after the conference – even if you promised to write a report or blog post, you’ll probably be exhausted and it may actually be better if you allow yourself time for reflection. Next time I may live blog the sessions at some of the conferences I attend, but I think as a sumarry of the conference I’ll write posts on key themes from the whole event after I’ve had time to reflect.
10. Network, network, network - oh, and network. For me conferences are all about the networking. The sessions are great, but it’s the discussions with other delegates that the sessions spark that I find most useful. I’ve spoken to so many different people in different roles and with totally different backgrounds at conferences, but every single person I have talked to I have found something in common with or something interesting to talk about. It’s good practice to take some business cards with you (if you don’t have cards from work, it’s really easy to make your own with your personal email and blog/Twitter/Facebook on). I actually found they weren’t necessary at LILAC as we were all given a delegate list with contact details, but I still had some of mine in case (plus everyone loves a funky penguin card don’t they?!).

I think they’re my main points, and it rounds nicely to a list of 10 so I’ll leave it there. If you have any other bits of advice, please feel free to leave them in the comments, and if you’re looking for more tips you may find some of these posts useful:

• Vicki Owens’ advice after attending LILAC 2009
• Conference attendance advice from Library Scenester
• Conference tips from Stephen’s Lighthouse

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I’m hoping to develop further Twitter support including a list of delegates (more on this later). I’m a bit late in organising it this year but thankfully the conference is on a non-working day so I should hopefully be able to attend, I’m just trying to get this confirmed at the moment.

For anyone else who is wondering about attending but hasn’t booked their place yet, I recently heard about a great competition being organised by CILIPs Membership Support Unit, and the prize is an all expenses paid place at the New Professionals Conference. You can see more details on the competition web page, but the basic idea is to submit a competition entry in any form (essay, video, art, whatever!) which answers the following question:

What would the world be like if information was unmanaged?

I’m looking forward to seeing the entries to this, please do enter the competition especially if you’re keen to attend the New Professionals Conference!

Hope to see some of you there on 5th July.

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After dragging myself out of bed and checking out of the hotel, we managed to make it across in time for the first session. I chose to attend the session by Alanna Ross and Christine Furno, who discussed their use of active learning to try to improve their 50 minute one shot information literacy sessions, comparing the use of clickers with a traditional lecture style session and a problem based learning approach; unfortunately their results were inconclusive but following further qualitative research they discovered that students did not see this as important due to lack of faculty support – sadly a lot of nodding faces at this point. Moving forward, they hope to integrate the session at the most appropriate time and link it to part of the module assessment by working with faculty.

I also attended a really interesting session by Elizabeth Symonds, Sarah Kennedy and Allison Davies (although only two of them were there – not sure who was missing sorry!) about information literacy and digital natives. They had done some research at both University of Gloucester and University of Worcester using the same questions posed to traditional first year students (i.e. straight from college) about their studying habits and the transition from FE to HE. I’m hoping to find out more about this as there were too many interesting findings to jot everything down, but a few points I found particularly interesting were that many preferred to study alone, they see social networking as a distraction for study breaks (not used to help study), and time management was the major issue when settling into HE. I definitely hope to find out more about this research, and will blog about it if I do.

Another quick break before the final two parallel sessions; Cathy Palmer sharing experiences of producing an information literacy online tutorial (biggest point I took from this session was the amount of preparation necessary before even considering producing content – see an example of one of their latest tutorials), and Valerie Kendlin and Lorna Dodd talking about the sustainability of information literacy support in University College Dublin. They had been successful in demonstrating the value of information literacy to support students, academic staff, and help deliver the University strategy – so successful that they were now struggling to meet demand! UCD are now looking to develop online support, use a blended learning approach, a more flexible approach to staffing (e.g. use library assistants to assist in sessions and handle administration), and communicate more with academic staff to ensure support is timely and fits into their study programme, not just a random module. Lots of food for thought!

Unfortunately I had to leave early to ensure I got to Dublin airport in plenty of time for my flight back to the UK, so I didn’t get to the final keynote from Ralph Catts, University of Stirling. It seemed like a thought provoking session though with lots of tweets which I was following.

That covers all the sessions I attended, but I also hope to publish a blog post about the conference overall and some tips for future attendees.

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Day 2 of LILAC 2010 began with a lovely hotel breakfast followed by a dash (due to the appalling weather!) over to the Strand hotel. The first session of the day was the second keynote of the conference, Dr Karen Fisher from University of Washington. Karen spoke about her research into lay information mediaries (LIMs):

those who seek information in a non-professional or lay capacity on behalf or because of others, without necessarily being asked to do so, or engaging in follow-up

The people they are looking for information for are referred to as the muse. Karen’s research has shown that LIMs are heavy users of libraries, and although they are usually information literate, they may not be socially information literate (i.e. knowing how to define people’s needs, explaining these needs, and translating them to help the user). Something for libraries and librarians to consider is that the person we assume is the end user (i.e. the person asking the question), is not necessarily – we may be speaking to a LIM who is seeking for information (knowingly or unknowingly) for a muse. More research into this is needed, and an interesting discussion followed, including a key question I feel from my own experience – are the two mutually exclusive? I know I act as an LIM and always have done (before I was a librarian) for certain peers and family members on topics such as technology and finance, but in other aspects of life the relationship may well be opposite – I know very little about DIY or cooking sadly! You can read more information about Karen’s research on the IBEC website, and read a more detailed account of the keynote courtesy of Sarah Faye Cohen (AKA The Sheck).

Following a brief break where I checked out some of the excellent posters, it was time for more parallel sessions – 4 consecutive sessions! I chose to attend:

• Geoff Walton’s presentation about Staffordshire University’s Assignment Survival Kit – key points taken from this session was that information literacy is bound by context – different subjects and students have very differing needs for all aspects of information literacy, including assignment planning;
• Georgina Hardy and Caroline Long’s presentation about PebblePad e-portfolio system – picked up a lot of ideas of how information literacy could be supported through PebblePad, which we have at my place of work but don’t currently utilise for information literacy support, lots to take away from this;
• Anthony Holderied’s presentation about active learning using interactive technologies – included pedagogic background into the advantages of active learning, as well as examples of their own research using interactive technologies such as “clickers” and interactive whiteboards, both of which demonstrated improvement in certain aspects of learning, but Anthony felt needed more research to establish how much of this was due to it being something different and therefore more interesting anyway;
• Andrew Walsh‘s presentation on QR codes (presentation and audio available) – I’ve already blogged about potential uses of QR codes in libraries but had no idea that most of these had been experimented with already at University of Huddersfield! Andrew’s findings were mixed; they dotted QR codes around the library and some codes had been scanned multiple times, others very little or not at all. Some students were very unsure about QR codes and were concerned it would cost them, but I was really pleased to hear that anecdotal evidence of asking people as they entered/exited the library showed that a greater percentage recognised QR codes and knew what they were by the end of their testing period. They’re hoping to focus their efforts now on providing QR codes to mobile friendly web based material on handouts.

Then it was time for a well-earned break and a buffet lunch where I had an interesting discussion with a Canadian librarian currently on sabbatical. It was very interesting to find out more about the differences in their job roles from in the UK, particularly regarding the focus on research for tenure in addition to their usual job responsibilities. A common theme from chatting to Canada and USA delegates though were that they were all intrigued by the CILIP Chartership process as they have no equivalent.

After lunch there was a one hour block before the afternoon break – this was a choice of either a workshop or Pecha Kucha. I chose to go to the Pecha Kucha as I hadn’t experienced it before and was keen to see what it was like. Each presenter had just 20 slides, with 20 seconds allowed for each slide. It meant a lot of presentations in a relatively short amount of time, but I have to confess it wasn’t to my personal liking. Due to the nature of the presentations, most had scripted their talk (understandably!) but it made for a very unnatural presentation. There was no time for any questions, and I tend to prefer a more interactive presentation style. There was too many different topics for me too – I think I’m more of a reflective learner and therefore need more time to take in what people are telling me about! A lot of people seemed to really like the fast-paced nature of it, but I think in future I’d rather go to a workshop focusing on just one element. I love the fact that there was a choice (in future I’d probaby opt out of the Pecha Kucha unless there were some particularly appealling presentations), although I did feel for those running a workshop as I think many people attended the Pecha Kucha, like me, to see what it was like.

After another quick break, there were two more parallel sessions but I have to confess I was flagging a little by this point, and when I discovered I was a little too late for my first session I decided instead to have a nosy round the exhibition stands, and then nipped back to my hotel for a quick shower and change in time for the evening’s dinner at Dromoland Castle, which was fabulous! I spent a wonderful evening with fantastic company, and enjoyed exploring the castle after dinner too. I was glad to see my bed at the end of the night though, although had to pack ready to check out the following morning so it was another late one – not as late as some though, who I heard were up until all hours in their hotel bars!

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Lunch followed, and there was a first-timers section to network with others who hadn’t been to LILAC before. The committee were also around at this point to introduce themselves and answer any questions. The conference was then officially opened by Sean Haughey, Minister for State for Lifelong Learning, followed by the first keynote of the conference from Tony Durcan, Head of Culture, Libraries and Lifelong Learning for Newcastle City Council. Tony’s keynote was very interesting – he discussed some of the new developments at Newcastle’s flagship library in the city centre, including some “soft triangular” (plectrum shaped according to Sarah!)  enquiry desks to reduce some of the barriers people face at traditional altar-like enquiry desks. It was interesting to hear that there has initially been a number of concerns and fears from staff about the changes to enquiries, but that now staff preferred the new style of roving support and more informal enquiry desks. Tony also discussed the implications of recent developments such as the Digital Britain report and the DCMS public library review, and how important it is for public libraries to enable access to computing facilities, internet access, and training to support these. He opened with a fantastic quote from The Aspen Institute (2009);

Information is as vital to the healthy functioning of communities as clean air, safe streets, good schools, and public health

After a brief refreshment break, it was then time for the next set of parallel sessions. I chose to attend the first session from Jacqui Weetman DaCosta and Eleonora Dubicki from New Jersey, who discussed their information literacy progression standards for New Jersey colleges and universities which were developed in collaboration with librarians across the state to assist in the transition between two year colleges and four year colleges and ensure a standard approach to information literacy dependent on study level. I particularly liked the point raised about working in collaboration with academic staff rather than prescribing what they should do to incorporate information literacy. You can see more information (including the presentation) on the New Jersey Libraries wiki. I attended a movie screening next – from University of Cardiff. They talked about their information literacy movies project, shared their experiences and what they have learnt from the process, and then we watched the horror themed video on referencing. I was interested to note that feedback from students showed a mix of opinion (with the same reasons used as both positives and negatives!), but generally the videos were engaging and helped to break up face to face sessions to make them more interesting. You can see the videos from the Information Literacy Resource Bank. The last talk I attended evaluated Pop-i and Lollipop, the online training programmes for library staff. Debbie Boden and Sarah Arkle discussed feedback from their iterations of the programme at University of Worcester and University of Bedfordshire. There was mixed feedback from people doing the course, but the main point I took from the session was the importance of the mentors in motivating participants and encouraging online discussion.

I had a quick look at the posters in the lecture hall before heading back to my hotel for a quick change, then it was time for the evening’s activities. We went to the Limerick Institute of Technology School of Art and Design for a buffet dinner, some drinks, irish dancing and celtic singing. Fantastic first day, can’t wait for the next!

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